CHAPTER THREE
Disembarking from her private jet, Stephanie got into her awaiting car and proceeded to drive herself to her Washington apartment, one of many that the Harper family owned around the country. She disliked hotels, no matter how luxurious they were.
Once she was inside her apartment, she checked in with her assistant in New York for messages, then freshened up and headed out for her meeting at the El Castillo next to the Federal Plaza with Senator McDonald.
The Senator was already waiting at their outdoor table when Stephanie arrived.
"Mrs Harper," the Senator stood from his seat and greeted Stephanie with great enthusiasm like a typical politician.
"Senator," Stephanie returned the smile and shook the hand that had been extended. The Senator sat as she also sat.
"I have to say, Mrs Harper, it was such a lovely surprise when your assistant called my office to arrange this meeting," the Senator began. "It has been a while since your last visit."
"As you can imagine, with my husband no longer with us, I have a lot of extra responsibilities with the Harper Group," Stephanie began. "As much as I try to delegate there are obviously a lot of things I still need to take care of personally. If there's one thing Ryan has taught me, it's that time is precious and we have to give back to our community whatever we can."
"I couldn't agree more," the Senator said. "The American people are very fortunate to benefit from your philanthropy."
Stephanie offered a smile, but beneath that smile was so much contempt for the sycophantic words she knew were coming out of this man's mouth while he could not wait to get his hands on her money.
"I won't beat around the bush, Senator," she said. "The Harper Foundation is pledging $2million to fund the arts program for underprivileged children in New Orleans and another five to complete the rebuilding of the Arts Centre. Ryan and I loved vacationing in that city and I can't believe how slow the rebuilding process has been since Hurricane Katrina. I'm keen to help bring the music back, so to speak."
The Senator's jaw dropped with excitement. As he muttered words of gratitude, Stephanie looked across the road just in time to catch sight of Agent Kramer as he headed out of the FBI building. This was the real reason she had travelled to Washington.
The Senator continued to talk while Stephanie nodded, pretending to hear, but all the while, wondering what the FBI agent might already know of the treasure she had hidden in New York.
"How'd our boy do?" Jones asked as Peter walked through the bullpen and headed to the kitchen. Jones and Diana followed.
"I don't think I will ever look at magazine ads the same way again," Peter commented as he poured himself a cup of coffee. "A word of advice when you see Caffrey next, don't ask him where a tie clip goes when there's no tie or shirt."
"What does that mean?" Diana looked at Jones, then at Peter but received no further explanation.
"Have you found anything useful on any of our suspects?" Peter asked as he headed up to his office with Diana and Jones in tow.
"Randy Lamoray – photographer-of-choice for the magazine for their featured advertising," Jones began. "He seems to have some clout with a lot of the major magazines because he's managed to keep the jobs coming despite a few complaints for sexual harassment. He was busted for cocaine possession at a party six months ago but the judge let him off on probation. He has a list of minor offences but nothing to indicate he could be dangerous and his financial records are pretty clean – nothing that would give him motive for blackmail."
"What about his assistant, Scarlett, or the makeup artist, Claire? Both seem to have been working for Lamoray for a while," Peter asked.
"Scarlett Wittner, real name: Susan Cunningham," Diana replied. "Changed her name six years ago when she started working for Lamoray – that's why we couldn't find much on her before; came to New York City eight years ago when she was fifteen to become a model. She managed to score a few little odd jobs here and there but her big break never came so she started to reinvent herself, starting with a name change, followed by a number of cosmetic surgeries."
"No wonder she was so angry all the time. The surgeon probably pulled out her funny bone to make way for the breast implants," Peter said. "How did an out-of-work teenage 'wannabe' model afford plastic surgery?" he asked.
"We were able to find old financial records for Susan Cunningham and found a large payment to her from a Dan McAllister eight years ago," Diana replied.
"Who's McAllister?" Peter asked.
"It turns out McAllister is a film producer – of adult films," Jones replied.
"And he didn't just like working behind the scenes, he liked to star in them, too, and none of them shot with a crew," Diana added.
Peter raised an eyebrow. "She was underage at the time?"
"Yep," Jones replied.
"Does McAllister have a record?" Peter asked.
"No," Jones replied. "We went through his bank records as far back as ten years ago and it looks like he's made similar payments to a lot of people over that period."
"Hand over whatever you've found to NYPD," Peter instructed. "That's a police matter now." Jones nodded.
"I don't think Scarlett is our blackmailer, Boss," Diana said. "There's nothing else to indicate she's anything other than a celebrity-seeker wanting to become rich and famous, not rich and in prison."
"I agree. What about the others?" Peter continued.
"Claire Richards – Lamoray's makeup artist and stylist since 1995," Jones continued. "They met a few years before that when she was working at the Estee Lauder counter at Macy's, hung out with pretty much the same party crowd and got Lamoray his first paid gig taking photos for a friend's band for their posters. They decided to team up after a few similar jobs and Claire quit her job at Macy's."
"Claire Richards' career took off with Lamoray's," Diana took over. "Looks like they have been having an on-and-off affair for much of the past decade. We've found tabloid reports of their very public fights but none of that gives them any motives to want or need to blackmail anyone. Their financial records are pretty clean."
"Did you get anything from the editor?" Jones asked.
"Katelyn Parson," Peter said. "She was watching the photo shoot like a hawk. I'm not sure that woman even took a bathroom break for the whole ten hours we were there. I tried to start up a conversation with her but the only thing she said to me was to talk to her assistant about getting the number of her beautician for Neal."
"A beautician?" Jones asked.
"Waxing," Peter said with another 'don't ask' look.
"Caffrey needs man-scaping?" Jones choked back a laugh.
"You mean there is someone else who doesn't believe that Caffrey is perfect the way he is?" Diana said as she struggled to get the image of Neal getting waxed out of her mind.
"Wow! How'd Caffrey take that kind of criticism?" Jones asked, still laughing.
"Not too well," Peter said to Jones. He turned back to Diana and asked, "What else did you find out about Parson?"
"She's worked for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar in Paris before returning States-side to start Bon Chance," Diana resumed her update. "You already know about some of her awards and successes from that magazine."
"You said she had been losing advertising dollars?" Peter asked.
"Not only that. She's been borrowing heavily to keep the magazine afloat, but this spread for Saks and the Verone & Sassia collection was going to bring her some serious dollars," Diana said. "Saks is paying for a fifteen-page advertising special including an advertorial on the collection and the designers, and as a special deal, Saks is also going to sell this issue of Bon Chance in-store as part of the deal. It's big money, Boss. She's got a lot riding on the success of this collection."
"OK, get me more on Parson's past and current business associates," Peter instructed his agents. "Anyone at all that she's worked with, considered working with or is working with. I want to know any history of lawsuits, bankruptcies, or threats of them. She may have a lot riding on the success of this collection but maybe she needs the cash quicker than it's coming in. My gut tells me there's more to her that she would never tell us."
As Jones left Peter's office to get started on Peter's instructions, Diana hung back. "Boss, here's the translation you asked me to do yesterday," she said as she handed back the original manifest to Peter along with its translation."
Peter looked at the list.
"You think our thieves will start moving these soon?" Diana asked.
"Nobody knew about this treasure until recently," Peter said. "My guess is none of this has been moved yet because whoever took it didn't know what to do with it. But I think enough time has passed. Let's hope our thief starts getting impatient and we'll see something on the market soon."
"How was your first day in the glamorous world of modelling?" Elizabeth asked Neal as he joined the Burkes at their kitchen while she prepared dinner.
"I spent the last two hours scrubbing off the layers of dirt and mud they put on my body, "Neal protested. "You know how when you go to the beach and it's all great until you go home and you find sand in places where you didn't think were possible for sand to go?" Elizabeth smiled and nodded. "Well, this was like that, except it was messier."
"Stop being such a baby," Peter said, still trying to suppress the fun he was having at Neal's expense. "You tracked mud into my car, too, which you're going to have to clean up, by the way. I've heard nothing but whining from you all the way back to your house. I didn't see you complaining when Claire had her hands all over your body."
Neal gave a slight smile at the memory. "She did have a pretty good touch."
"See, working for the FBI does have its perks," Elizabeth smiled.
"Well, I could think of better places for her to put her hands…" Neal began.
"Enough," Peter said to Neal, then turned to his wife and said, "I will never understand modelling."
"What is there to understand? You pretty much leave any sense of self-consciousness at the door and do whatever you're told, and let complete strangers poke and prod you," Neal replied.
"OK, so has all this poking and prodding given you a better idea of who might be behind the blackmail attempt?" El asked.
"They're not the friendliest bunch of people in town, that's for sure," Neal replied.
"I thought you knew a lot of models?" Elizabeth said. "Remember that rooftop party we had when you were trying to catch Ghovat a couple years back?"
"Partying with them is different from being one of them," Neal replied.
"Their operations looked legit," Peter interrupted. "Everything in the shopfront looked very professional. Jones and Diana have been doing some digging and we think the magazine editor might have the best motive for the blackmail. The magazine's been losing a lot of money lately and she owns a big stake in the company. We just need more proof to see how to connect her to all this."
"If the blackmailer is threatening to reproduce cheap copies of the collection, then he or she must have connections to a factory of some kind to mass produce this quickly and cheaply, right?" Elizabeth suggested.
Peter smiled broadly at his wife, gave her a kiss on the cheek, turned to Neal and said, "and that is just one of the many reasons I married this woman. Beautiful and smart!"
Neal's phone rang in his pocket. He took it out, looked at the caller ID, pressed "reject" and put it back in his pocket. Peter and Elizabeth exchanged looks. "So what's next?" Neal asked. "Am I going to need to go back for another photo shoot?"
"I think you're safe for now, Fabio," Peter said, to which Neal pulled a face. "Let's see what Jones and Diana come up with tomorrow."
Back at her Washington apartment, Stephanie returned her work calls, and tried calling Neal again. Still no answer. She was beginning to worry. Her calls to Caffrey senior yielded the same results.
There was a knock on her door. A look at the security monitor showed it was the concierge. She opened the door.
"Good evening, Mrs Harper," the concierge greeted. "These just arrived for you, ma'am," he said as he handed a large bouquet of flowers to her.
"Thank you, John," Stephanie took the flowers.
"Have a good night, Mrs Harper," John added and turned to return to his post.
Stephanie took the bouquet into the kitchen, found a vase for the flowers, then poured herself a drink. She carefully inspected the flowers before plucking a tiny bud from the arrangement. She took the bud and her drink out to the lounge, put her feet up as she turned on her laptop. She tugged at the bottom of the bud to reveal a USB flash drive and inserted it into the laptop.
"Let's see what we've got here,' Stephanie said to herself.
She browsed through the contents containing copies of email correspondence between Agent Kramer and his protégé, Melissa Matthews; travel itinerary for Matthews from Dulles to JFK and her hotel reservations for New York City; photos of her entering and exiting the FBI Building in New York carrying an attaché case. Stephanie wished there was an x-ray photo to see the contents of that case.
There was a copy of Agent Matthews' personnel file – an art history major with a sub-major in criminology in college, reasonable grades at Quantico – probably more book-smart than street-smart, but Stephanie did not want to underestimate any member of Kramer's team. After all, he was Peter's mentor, and he would not have sent just anybody to New York to meet with Peter.
There was an audio file on the flash drive. It began to play back a conversation between Kramer and Matthews.
Kramer: How did your meeting go?
Matthews: I explained to Agent Burke that you were not able to come to New York and that you had briefed me on his suspicions about the U-boat treasure not burning up in that warehouse. He told me the ERT recovered some remnants of paintings from the fire as well as what appears to be a partial manifest of the contents of the sub.
Kramer: You have the manifest?
Matthews: Yes, sir. He gave me a copy of it so that we can put a BOLO on anything that might be on this list popping up anywhere in the world.
Kramer: Has he got any other proof that the paintings they found in the warehouse were forgeries?
Matthews: Unfortunately, they weren't able to find anything usable to test with. All they've been able to test for was how the fire was started.
Kramer: The TNT from the sub?
Matthews: Yes, sir, as far as forensics can tell, the explosives date back to WWII – definitely nothing available on the market today.
Kramer: When are you coming back?
Matthews: I'll be back in DC tomorrow afternoon.
Kramer: Good. Do not let that manifest out of your sight.
Matthews: Don't worry, sir, it's in a safe place.
Kramer: Come straight in when you land. I'll be waiting.
Matthews: Yes, sir.
Stephanie replayed the conversation two more times.
"Oh Nicholas," she said aloud to an empty room. "Look what you've done."